And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
And ... cue the losers who try to say that Apple steals all their ideas like the rest without stopping to investigate whether they are right or not first.
It is so obvious that Apple explored many potentials before arriving at the announced iPad. People are just SO stupid not to figure it out, even from a company that - as Jobs put it - get rid of the unNecessary stuff ( which now wisely they patent ). When i saw the Microsoft surface keyboard i though Apple did that already, it is so obvious.
The end design is always a result of various failures, and hardly the 3rd or 4th take.
--
There is an excellent summation to be found on www.gigaom.com of Apple's legal strategy
It examines why they took that legal road back in the eighties and how it will finally pay off now, big time.
After reading the Gigaom article I finally understand where Apple is going. I thought they were bumbling the issues but I can now see they are setting their enemy up for the kill.
It was meant to crush any competitor who tries to leverage Apple's hard won ideas. Android fanboys need to read it and get over it. Apple will eventually shut down those who are 'slavishly copying' their IP. The law is on Apple's side. But what the fanboys are screaming about here and in other forums only indicates they do not have a clue. Apple has pursued their legal weapons as carefully as they design their products. They have an amazing variety of legitimate legal strategies that even seasoned patent attorneys have never thought of before much less than the uninformed fanboys.
Fanboys are only a factor in their own imagination. They are like the ant on a railroad track who screams at an on coming train that all ants should have the right to walk on this smooth railroad surface because it was there before they saw the train
The perfect Smart Cover for me, should have a secondary E-ink display (reading books-reports, browsing outside etc...) I have no idea why some company didn't invented something like that already...:(
eInk displays are just not that popular (except in a price competitive way). Some people like the, but some people hate them.
If half of your customers like them and half do not, then adding one will eliminate half your customers.
what is this obsession with physical keyboards??? I hope they don't do it!
Me too.
IMO this patent application is just a result of the design group sitting around their kitchen table and asking themselves ... "well, what are all the craziest things that you could use the smart-cover for," basically as a means of closing off avenues that other companies might take to improve or co-opt their smart cover product. Since it turns out that Microsoft was obviously about to do just this, it's a smart move on Apple's part.
That being said, I don't see that any of these are really good ideas and I don't expect to see any of them in production ever. There are many practical problems with almost everything mentioned which is why I think these are just to cover off the possibility of said products being developed by others. The concept of the "second screen" is an especially poor one. This has been tried several times, (most recently by Microsoft on laptops) and it always lands with a resounding "thud" every time. If the second screen has zero utility on laptops which awake from sleep in less than 30 seconds, it will be even less useful on an iPad that can be turned on in less than one second.
There may be some utility for an "at a glance" screen on your wrist via a bluetooth accessory like the nano, but I don't think we will ever see a second screen on an iPad.
And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
If you really wanted to be called anything but a hit and run troll, you'd turn off the proxy server.
Originally Posted by xStatiCa
Great... So now we will need a smart cover to protect the smart cover.
The 2nd gen iPad with the Smart Cover on fits perfectly into the Apple case for the 1st gen iPad.
Apple creates a screen keyboard combo, its revolutionary!!!!! I wonder what they will call it, hmmmm maybe a laptop? Better get a patent on that because everyone will want to copy this idea. I mean seriously screen and keyboard fold up together, thats crazy talk. Mind blown again. Might also need to get a case for my case for my iPad. But its all good because I can show off all my apple gear at work. And I get extra apple stickers to put on my car window so people know how much apple shi+ I buy. Sweetness, again apple you keep wowing us with your revolutionary products that never have been done before. And you know we will buy, we must buy to keep up with the coworkers and neighbors and really anyone else we really don't care about anyways. After all I just want to blow money out my a$$ just to check my Facebook status and maybe twitter ooooo and pinterest. It looks like Im doing something important on my iPad but I'm just looking at other people's lives that are more interesting than mine. But hey I got all this apple stuff to fill the void in my lonely life and I get to pretend to be computer savvy, if only for a moment, until they release something new for me to buy.
I guess they patent every idea they come up... This seems overcomplicated to me and not very "Apple-like".
I would be surprised if this ever saw the light of day. It does remind of two things I do want from Apple.
1) A trackpad that is also a simple display for widget, Menu Bar items when in full-screen mode, and other useful tools that are easier to use with a finger instead of a mouse, like the Calculator. AMOLED would probably be best for this since most of the already glass trackpad could just be black thus not using any power.
2) Extra magnets in the iPad and SmartCover so that when I can lift just the first panel on the iPad to see a single column of notifications, stocks, weather, etc.
Apple creates a screen keyboard combo, its revolutionary!!!!! I wonder what they will call it, hmmmm maybe a laptop?
Of course when Microsoft "did" it, it was "the way tablets are supposed to be used".
Better get a patent on that because everyone will want to copy this idea.
Guess you missed the point of the article…
But its all good because I can show off all my apple gear at work. And I get extra apple stickers to put on my car window so people know how much apple shi+ I buy.
#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } god, i hope not! this has microslop 'innovation' and form/design written all over it.
surely apple can come up with something more smartly designed than this. hell, give me a larger form factor 'iPad' with a full operating system and i'd be very happy.
People have been making mockups of these things for years. Covers with displays that show updates, I can remember MS and a third party showing mockups.
Just a thought but the connector sort of looks similar to the thing on the side of the rumored iPhone5.
I'm wondering if Apple is taking the concept of the mag-safe to the next level and making it a mag-connector.
Also as a thought on the ipad patent app, it looks to be several steps beyond the Surface concept. It's not a keyboard but a 4 piece glass system that would be driven by software to change based off user application. The potential applications would be limitless bound only by the imagination. Also I think a further evolution would be a fully flexible OLED type screen.
What would be awesome (ie highly unlikely) is if the unknown thing on the side of the iPhone 5 was actually a connector that allowed you to attach things magnetically to the side such as a second touch screen.
And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
Not only that, Apple got beat by Google for that Glass thingy. It's sad though if you think about it. Apple fantasizes about certain devices and patents them at the very next NY minute, even if it will take Apple years to realize it, if at all, because APPLE IS A SOFTWARE COMPANY AND HARDLY A HARDWARE COMPANY AT ALL. So, in order for Apple to build things it's been issued patents on, it will have to wait for VARIOUS HARDWARE COMPANIES TO SOMEDAY COME UP WITH ALL REQUIRED PARTS BEFORE THOSE APPLE'S FANTASY DEVICES CAN BE ASSEMBLED, then , and only then, APPLE WILL BE ABLE TO BUILD ITS FANTASY DEVICES WHILE HAVING THESE PATENTS AS PROTECTION AGAINST LITIGATIONS. That is Apple's game plan. Once in awhile, some companies screw up this scenario, i.e. Google Glass and Microsoft Surface. Google and Microsoft come up with working products prior to Apple [being able/having decided] to implement either of these patents.
Many other great inventors actually create things, prolly fail gazillion times before they get it right, and when they get it right then they think about patenting it. That is what patent office is supposed to be doing. Every hardware patent application has to be accompanied by a prototype that works as described by the patent itself. This will 100% kill all patent trolls. Nowadays though, USPTO is too busy with its own goal of collecting fees from patent grantees. The more patent it grants, the more money it will collect. It is being run totally like a fast food business chain. I betcha USPTO has a target of how many patent they must grant at a minimum every single year. It's becoming an organization with a volume goals. USPTO is into quantities instead of qualities.This kind of operation riddle with a lot of problems, much like any other for-profit entities in the business, namely greeds. USPTO even publishes list of patents due to be expired because the original assignees failed to pay the maintenance fee.
These are fees being collected by USPTO:
-Patent Application Filing Fees
-Patent Search Fees
-Patent Examination Fees
-Patent Post-Allowance Fees
-Patent Maintenance Fees
-Miscellaneous Patent Fees
-Post Issuance Fees
-Patent Extension of Time Fees
-Patent Appeals/Interference Fees
-Patent Petition Fees
-Patent Service Fees
-Patent Enrollment Fees
Here I have this fantasy about a "Time Machine" complete with its concept and drawings, but wait Apple already patented a "Time Machine", only of a different kind however. Hm..., oh no..., there is another Time Machine, found here. Moreover, I will have to pay tons of fees to USPTO which I can ill afford, but, we all know, Apple can afford to pay these USPTO fees with the profit it makes with its i-devices and can also even subsidize its currently "non money making" fantasy devices patent fees very comfortably for many years to come.
…in order for Apple to build things it's been issued patents on, it will have to wait for VARIOUS HARDWARE COMPANIES TO SOMEDAY COME UP WITH ALL REQUIRED PARTS BEFORE THOSE APPLE'S FANTASY DEVICES CAN BE ASSEMBLED…
I think there is a space for a tablet with a keyboard. There are a lot of people who use their tablets for email or memos and the lack of a physical keyboard can be a problem. However, instead of a MacBook Air Touch, I would go the other way. Don't add touch to a laptop, add a keyboard to the tablet. Something like an iPad Pro - an iPad with keyboard that folds out of the way so it can be used as a tablet, but with a keyboard that's available for when you have to type more than a few words.
I think many people read too much into Apple's patents.
What we're seeing in the patents are just ideas, not products that are sitting on a shelf ready to ship.
The best "keyboard tablet" already exists, it's called a laptop, many vendors make them. There used to be models where you could detach the "screen" part and use it as a tablet, where the keyboard part had the other optional parts like the optical drive and additional usb ports. They were heavy, nobody wants heavy things.
The problem with the smart cover concept (even Microsoft's) is that it's not a keyboard, the lack of feedback or key depth makes it unsuitable for being used for long periods of time. It is a step up from the touch screen, where the keyboard obscures half the screen, but it's not a replacement. There are still people out there that prefer the loud clicky 1980's IBM keyboards on their computers. When you give these people something with short key depth, or much more quiet, they don't like it. Fortunately people can adapt. So the "keyboard" cover is just not necessary.
One of the nice things about Tablets not having a physical keyboard, is that software has to be written with the assumption that the touch screen is the input device, and it forces developers to design around the possibility that the keyboard is not visible. This is why tablet software is should not the be same as desktop software (something Microsoft fails to understand, which is why a microsoft tablet needs a keyboard.) You can't sell a tablet software and go "an external keyboard is required." Desktop software makes extensive use of meta keys, so there maybe be 600 combinations of keystrokes available.
Comments
I don't understand why people think this is copying MS. MS's cover is a keyboard. There's no display. Or am I mistaken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Wright
And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
And ... cue the losers who try to say that Apple steals all their ideas like the rest without stopping to investigate whether they are right or not first.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ochyming
Yeah!
It is so obvious that Apple explored many potentials before arriving at the announced iPad. People are just SO stupid not to figure it out, even from a company that - as Jobs put it - get rid of the unNecessary stuff ( which now wisely they patent ). When i saw the Microsoft surface keyboard i though Apple did that already, it is so obvious.
The end design is always a result of various failures, and hardly the 3rd or 4th take.
--
There is an excellent summation to be found on www.gigaom.com of Apple's legal strategy
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/01/ilegal-as-apples-products-evolved-so-did-a-strategy-to-protect-them/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAppleBlog+%28GigaOM%3A+Apple%29
It examines why they took that legal road back in the eighties and how it will finally pay off now, big time.
After reading the Gigaom article I finally understand where Apple is going. I thought they were bumbling the issues but I can now see they are setting their enemy up for the kill.
It was meant to crush any competitor who tries to leverage Apple's hard won ideas. Android fanboys need to read it and get over it. Apple will eventually shut down those who are 'slavishly copying' their IP. The law is on Apple's side. But what the fanboys are screaming about here and in other forums only indicates they do not have a clue. Apple has pursued their legal weapons as carefully as they design their products. They have an amazing variety of legitimate legal strategies that even seasoned patent attorneys have never thought of before much less than the uninformed fanboys.
Fanboys are only a factor in their own imagination. They are like the ant on a railroad track who screams at an on coming train that all ants should have the right to walk on this smooth railroad surface because it was there before they saw the train
Are you with the ant or on the train?
Quote:
Originally Posted by namot
The perfect Smart Cover for me, should have a secondary E-ink display (reading books-reports, browsing outside etc...) I have no idea why some company didn't invented something like that already...:(
eInk displays are just not that popular (except in a price competitive way). Some people like the, but some people hate them.
If half of your customers like them and half do not, then adding one will eliminate half your customers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Techboy
what is this obsession with physical keyboards??? I hope they don't do it!
Me too.
IMO this patent application is just a result of the design group sitting around their kitchen table and asking themselves ... "well, what are all the craziest things that you could use the smart-cover for," basically as a means of closing off avenues that other companies might take to improve or co-opt their smart cover product. Since it turns out that Microsoft was obviously about to do just this, it's a smart move on Apple's part.
That being said, I don't see that any of these are really good ideas and I don't expect to see any of them in production ever. There are many practical problems with almost everything mentioned which is why I think these are just to cover off the possibility of said products being developed by others. The concept of the "second screen" is an especially poor one. This has been tried several times, (most recently by Microsoft on laptops) and it always lands with a resounding "thud" every time. If the second screen has zero utility on laptops which awake from sleep in less than 30 seconds, it will be even less useful on an iPad that can be turned on in less than one second.
There may be some utility for an "at a glance" screen on your wrist via a bluetooth accessory like the nano, but I don't think we will ever see a second screen on an iPad.
Great... So now we will need a smart cover to protect the smart cover.
Originally Posted by John Wright
And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
If you really wanted to be called anything but a hit and run troll, you'd turn off the proxy server.
Originally Posted by xStatiCa
Great... So now we will need a smart cover to protect the smart cover.
The 2nd gen iPad with the Smart Cover on fits perfectly into the Apple case for the 1st gen iPad.
Forethought for thought?
Apple creates a screen keyboard combo, its revolutionary!!!!! I wonder what they will call it, hmmmm maybe a laptop? Better get a patent on that because everyone will want to copy this idea. I mean seriously screen and keyboard fold up together, thats crazy talk. Mind blown again. Might also need to get a case for my case for my iPad. But its all good because I can show off all my apple gear at work. And I get extra apple stickers to put on my car window so people know how much apple shi+ I buy. Sweetness, again apple you keep wowing us with your revolutionary products that never have been done before. And you know we will buy, we must buy to keep up with the coworkers and neighbors and really anyone else we really don't care about anyways. After all I just want to blow money out my a$$ just to check my Facebook status and maybe twitter ooooo and pinterest. It looks like Im doing something important on my iPad but I'm just looking at other people's lives that are more interesting than mine. But hey I got all this apple stuff to fill the void in my lonely life and I get to pretend to be computer savvy, if only for a moment, until they release something new for me to buy.
I would be surprised if this ever saw the light of day. It does remind of two things I do want from Apple.
1) A trackpad that is also a simple display for widget, Menu Bar items when in full-screen mode, and other useful tools that are easier to use with a finger instead of a mouse, like the Calculator. AMOLED would probably be best for this since most of the already glass trackpad could just be black thus not using any power.
2) Extra magnets in the iPad and SmartCover so that when I can lift just the first panel on the iPad to see a single column of notifications, stocks, weather, etc.
Originally Posted by pgc137
Apple creates a screen keyboard combo, its revolutionary!!!!! I wonder what they will call it, hmmmm maybe a laptop?
Of course when Microsoft "did" it, it was "the way tablets are supposed to be used".
Better get a patent on that because everyone will want to copy this idea.
Guess you missed the point of the article…
But its all good because I can show off all my apple gear at work. And I get extra apple stickers to put on my car window so people know how much apple shi+ I buy.
Get off our website.
#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
god, i hope not! this has microslop 'innovation' and form/design written all over it.
surely apple can come up with something more smartly designed than this. hell, give me a larger form factor 'iPad' with a full operating system and i'd be very happy.
The screen part is certainly not new.
People have been making mockups of these things for years. Covers with displays that show updates, I can remember MS and a third party showing mockups.
Granted not touchscreen but the same idea.
I'm going to need a smart cover for the new smarter cover. Just kidding. I like.
Just a thought but the connector sort of looks similar to the thing on the side of the rumored iPhone5.
I'm wondering if Apple is taking the concept of the mag-safe to the next level and making it a mag-connector.
Also as a thought on the ipad patent app, it looks to be several steps beyond the Surface concept. It's not a keyboard but a 4 piece glass system that would be driven by software to change based off user application. The potential applications would be limitless bound only by the imagination. Also I think a further evolution would be a fully flexible OLED type screen.
What would be awesome (ie highly unlikely) is if the unknown thing on the side of the iPhone 5 was actually a connector that allowed you to attach things magnetically to the side such as a second touch screen.
Another mini Steve Jobs surface.
Not patenting every idea but the ones that are useful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Wright
And.....cue the fanboys who try to say this is not stealing MSFT ideas. Listen, I love Apple as much as anyone, but lets call a spade a spade here, they got beat to the punch.
Not only that, Apple got beat by Google for that Glass thingy. It's sad though if you think about it. Apple fantasizes about certain devices and patents them at the very next NY minute, even if it will take Apple years to realize it, if at all, because APPLE IS A SOFTWARE COMPANY AND HARDLY A HARDWARE COMPANY AT ALL. So, in order for Apple to build things it's been issued patents on, it will have to wait for VARIOUS HARDWARE COMPANIES TO SOMEDAY COME UP WITH ALL REQUIRED PARTS BEFORE THOSE APPLE'S FANTASY DEVICES CAN BE ASSEMBLED, then , and only then, APPLE WILL BE ABLE TO BUILD ITS FANTASY DEVICES WHILE HAVING THESE PATENTS AS PROTECTION AGAINST LITIGATIONS. That is Apple's game plan. Once in awhile, some companies screw up this scenario, i.e. Google Glass and Microsoft Surface. Google and Microsoft come up with working products prior to Apple [being able/having decided] to implement either of these patents.
Many other great inventors actually create things, prolly fail gazillion times before they get it right, and when they get it right then they think about patenting it. That is what patent office is supposed to be doing. Every hardware patent application has to be accompanied by a prototype that works as described by the patent itself. This will 100% kill all patent trolls. Nowadays though, USPTO is too busy with its own goal of collecting fees from patent grantees. The more patent it grants, the more money it will collect. It is being run totally like a fast food business chain. I betcha USPTO has a target of how many patent they must grant at a minimum every single year. It's becoming an organization with a volume goals. USPTO is into quantities instead of qualities.This kind of operation riddle with a lot of problems, much like any other for-profit entities in the business, namely greeds. USPTO even publishes list of patents due to be expired because the original assignees failed to pay the maintenance fee.
These are fees being collected by USPTO:
-Patent Application Filing Fees
-Patent Search Fees
-Patent Examination Fees
-Patent Post-Allowance Fees
-Patent Maintenance Fees
-Miscellaneous Patent Fees
-Post Issuance Fees
-Patent Extension of Time Fees
-Patent Appeals/Interference Fees
-Patent Petition Fees
-Patent Service Fees
-Patent Enrollment Fees
Here I have this fantasy about a "Time Machine" complete with its concept and drawings, but wait Apple already patented a "Time Machine", only of a different kind however. Hm..., oh no..., there is another Time Machine, found here. Moreover, I will have to pay tons of fees to USPTO which I can ill afford, but, we all know, Apple can afford to pay these USPTO fees with the profit it makes with its i-devices and can also even subsidize its currently "non money making" fantasy devices patent fees very comfortably for many years to come.
Originally Posted by mcrs
…in order for Apple to build things it's been issued patents on, it will have to wait for VARIOUS HARDWARE COMPANIES TO SOMEDAY COME UP WITH ALL REQUIRED PARTS BEFORE THOSE APPLE'S FANTASY DEVICES CAN BE ASSEMBLED…
Well that's just not true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
I think there is a space for a tablet with a keyboard. There are a lot of people who use their tablets for email or memos and the lack of a physical keyboard can be a problem. However, instead of a MacBook Air Touch, I would go the other way. Don't add touch to a laptop, add a keyboard to the tablet. Something like an iPad Pro - an iPad with keyboard that folds out of the way so it can be used as a tablet, but with a keyboard that's available for when you have to type more than a few words.
I think many people read too much into Apple's patents.
What we're seeing in the patents are just ideas, not products that are sitting on a shelf ready to ship.
The best "keyboard tablet" already exists, it's called a laptop, many vendors make them. There used to be models where you could detach the "screen" part and use it as a tablet, where the keyboard part had the other optional parts like the optical drive and additional usb ports. They were heavy, nobody wants heavy things.
The problem with the smart cover concept (even Microsoft's) is that it's not a keyboard, the lack of feedback or key depth makes it unsuitable for being used for long periods of time. It is a step up from the touch screen, where the keyboard obscures half the screen, but it's not a replacement. There are still people out there that prefer the loud clicky 1980's IBM keyboards on their computers. When you give these people something with short key depth, or much more quiet, they don't like it. Fortunately people can adapt. So the "keyboard" cover is just not necessary.
One of the nice things about Tablets not having a physical keyboard, is that software has to be written with the assumption that the touch screen is the input device, and it forces developers to design around the possibility that the keyboard is not visible. This is why tablet software is should not the be same as desktop software (something Microsoft fails to understand, which is why a microsoft tablet needs a keyboard.) You can't sell a tablet software and go "an external keyboard is required." Desktop software makes extensive use of meta keys, so there maybe be 600 combinations of keystrokes available.
Originally Posted by JQPURDUE
I agree. Love Apple, but this doesn't impress me.
Glad to know that something that doesn't exist doesn't impress you.